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The Tongan for Tonga: fundraising for the archipelago’s iconic athlete

Those who have attended the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics have seen at least once a shirtless athlete. He participated in summer and winter games, always without a shirt: he is il tongano Pita Taufatofua. He is certainly the most famous athlete in his country, if not the best known person abroad. Now that his country is in trouble, he is the first to take the field for Tonga.

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With his campaign he raised almost 500 thousand Australian dollars on GoFundMe and aims to double the amount. This money will be used for people in greater difficulty, to rebuild and repair infrastructures, schools, hospitals.

“As you all know, a tsunami caused by a volcanic eruption devastated Tonga. We raise funds to help the island »he writes on the page. On his Instagram account there are among the few images that come from the archipelago devastated by the consequences of an explosion which, according to NASA, was 500 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

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Pita Taufatofua, which is currently in Australia, represented his country in taekwondo at the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 summer games, in cross-country skiing in the winter of 2018, thanks to the places reserved for countries that fail to qualify athletes. He wrote that he managed to contact his family after days on Haapai Island. It will take weeks to restore submarine cables for telephone and internet connections.

His fundraiser is one of many. Rugby champion Malakai Fekitoa also activated one. Save the children estimates that at least 28,000 children and 80,000 people have been affected. There is concern for the health risks of children and their parents due to ash pollution in drinking water. The schools were supposed to reopen on January 31, but the damage and destruction of the schools will undoubtedly delay the resumption of classes.

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